


Make It Home

by navaan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cats, M/M, Pining, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Slash, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve finds an abandoned kitten and takes it back to Avengers Tower. But would Tony be glad if he knew there was now a pet in the house?
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 38
Kudos: 318





	Make It Home

**Author's Note:**

> Written this summer for Takame in the wake of one _Endgame_ and Steve/Tony discussion. I’m posting it now after it sat on my hard drive all this time, our cat passed away a few weeks ago. I had him for 20 wonderful years and will never forget how much joy he brought to my life.
> 
> Thank you so much, Let's_call_me_Lily for betaing this and being there and everything. And also thank you to Takame for Endgame talks and also for always being there for me. Thanks both of you!

The small mewling noise caught Steve’s attention even over the sound of traffic and the raindrops drumming relentlessly against his umbrella and splashing into puddles on the street. When he looked down, he saw a small orange tabby kitten emerging from a side alley, alone and shivering. With the wet, dirty fur it made for a pitiful sight.

He crouched down to look at it, staying far enough away to let it run if it chose to. It scurried to the side, as if afraid to be kicked or touched, then sat down and blinked up at him, making a high pitched, unhappy sound.

“Hey, little guy,” he said, just watching and keeping still to show he was no threat. “Alone in the rain, huh? How did that happen?”

He looked past the shivering kitten, hoping a mother cat would emerge to collect it from the alley. Nothing moved. There was no sign of any other living being. 

“All alone,” he whispered, staring down the alley, then the street and up the fire escapes, still hoping to get an idea where the little thing had come from.

As if in answer, the kitten meowed, a tiny cry for whoever had left it behind.

All alone, indeed. Steve knew that feeling a little too well.

He was glad to be back in New York, able to swoop in and out of Stark Tower with no disguise other than a baseball cap he pulled a little lower now and then when people looked at him a little too closely. But Hydra was back, his never-really-a-home apartment in Washington was destroyed, and Bucky was somewhere out there alive but hiding. With all that, he didn’t need the drizzling rain to feel downtrodden — he only needed to let his thoughts drift.

All he wanted was to feel at home.

Today, he had gone for a walk. They had no new leads, no new mission — Natasha and Clint were out gathering information, Sam was collecting leads on Bucky’s whereabouts, Bruce and Tony were collaborating on something or other whenever Tony was in New York, and Thor dropped in and out as he was needed, busy leading multiple lives. It made Steve feel useless and aimless.

Just this morning, Natasha had suggested he should enjoy the downtime. “Tony’s built a training room better than any gym you could have found at a SHIELD facility.”

She hadn’t said, “For you,” or, “to keep you busy”. To be honest, Tony probably hadn’t thought of Steve as much as the whole team when he built it — “Hulk- and Thor-proof, with space enough to accommodate everyone,” he had said to Steve when he’d showed him around that first time weeks ago — but there was enough equipment to show that Tony had thought about the specific challenges a super soldier would like to prepare for.

So far, Steve had been the only one using it.

Tony, as far as Steve could tell, wasn’t even in New York most of the time. It was just them — Natasha, Bruce and Steve — who were living in Avengers Tower permanently.

“I could use some company,” he told the shivering kitten. “Bruce and Natasha get along fine, and I try not to get in the way. And Sam is only dropping by when he has updates on our missing person case…” He let the word trail off, sheepishly realizing he was baring his heart to a stray kitten instead of any of the people he thought of as friends.

_What are you doing — talking to strays? Are you really considering taking it home? You have no idea how to keep a cat!_

He couldn’t leave it here either, though. At the very least he should take it, make sure it was healthy and warm, and then figure out how to find it a better home? He could do that much, right? There were animal shelters — and perhaps someone was looking for it.

Coming to a decision, Steve reached out. The kitten ducked and hopped two steps back. They looked at each other uneasily, frozen in place — then the kitten carefully leaned forward to sniff his wet fingers. It looked like a tiny wet bird.

Carefully he touched it, picked it up. It dripped all over his jeans and didn’t make a sound, going stiff as he held it up to inspect it. He knew little about cats. He’d given some strays in the neighborhood milk when he had some, his mother and Bucky berating him endlessly about the waste, even though he knew they were smiling at his good-hardheartedness behind his back.

“We keep this between us,” he suggested, tugging the kitten into his leather jacket, where it pushed its paws against his shirt and mewled, trying to crawl up towards his shoulder. Afraid to hold it too tightly he maneuvered it around until it settled, tiny wet head sticking out beneath his chin.

He walked back towards Avengers Tower with renewed determination. At least he had a home to share there — even though it didn’t feel like much of one, yet.

* * *

Back in the Tower, he toweled the kitten off, feeling a pang of momentary guilt when he saw dirt stains forming on the perfect white of the soft, expensive towels that Tony had provided him with. The kitten found the whole procedure frightening at first and started to struggle, biting into the white fabric a few times before kicking its legs at Steve.

“Ah,” he said, “a little fighter. Happens when you grow up on the streets of New York, huh? We end up tough.”

At that point the kitten probably realized it was safe, warm and drier than before, and settled into the soft cocoon Steve had formed around it, purring. He set the bundle down on the floor and realized he’d never been so grateful for the heated floor. Until now, it had been one of those unnecessary modern amnesties that bordered on decadence. In his time, he’d been glad to have warm water in a freezing cold bathroom.

The kitten appreciated it greatly, though.

Steve sat down, leaning against the bathtub, watching it get warm and cozy before he forced himself back into action. He needed to go down to the kitchen and find something to feed it. Later he could head out to get cat food, but there would be something to stave the kitten’s hunger in the Tower. Meat in the freezer that he could cook up, or a can of tuna. He knew Tony stocked the pantry for all of them, even though Steve preferred to go out for lunch over cooking something himself.

Efficiently and systematically, like the super soldier he was, he worked his way through all cupboards and the pantry. He boiled the frozen chicken he’d found in the freezer and put chunks of it on a little plate.. As soon as he was done, he found himself back upstairs with everything he’d deemed suitable, realizing the kitten had left its cocoon of warmth to explore the bathroom.

When he set the plate, it stuck out the head from behind the shower curtain.

Steve wasn’t even sure it was old enough for this kind of food yet. How did you tell?

He put down the bowl of milk he’d also brought, hoping the kitten would choose one or the other, and then watched it scurry closer to inspect the food. It nearly fell into the pile of chicken scraps in utter delight, so Steve hoped it would be okay.

As the new century had taught him, the next thing to do was sit down and do an Internet search. He found himself reading about the evil of cow’s milk for the kitten tummy not five minutes later, and scrambled to look for his tiny charge. Said charge had pushed most of the food off one side of the plate, making a mess of the bathroom, but seemed quite happy with bits and pieces sticking to its mouth.

Not sure what else to do, he closed the bathroom door behind himself, leaving the kitten locked in until he had time to figure out how exactly you dealt with a stray in your apartment. Then he returned to his search, typing, “helping stray cat,” into the search bar.

He found some sensible advice right away and called the first animal shelter in New York that came up in the search results. The person on the other end was happy to give him the rundown on what to do with a very young kitten in your home, took his phone number and the description he gave in case someone was looking for his charge, and left Steve with a long shopping list. Only when Steve had put the phone down did he realize that he hadn’t asked the most crucial question: How to find a good home for the kitten in case nobody came looking for it.

Was he going to keep it?

In what Tony had now labeled “Avengers Tower”?

The shopping list he had scribbled down suggested that the nice lady from the animal shelter thought he was going to. A tiny voice was calling for attention from the bathroom, and the idea was forming that perhaps he was now the proud owner of his very first cat. What a scary and delightfully commonplace thing to happen to a superhero.

He opened the bathroom door to let the kitten wander out shyly, watched it duck and in the end turn tail and run back to the now at least familiar and safe bathroom. “Hi,” he said when it tried to squeeze under one of the closets, “I’m Captain America and I really need to give you a name beside _kitten_? Any suggestions?”

* * *

Tiger earned her name that same evening when she dared to leave the bathroom for more than a minute — and hissed at the first rug she came across, ending it in a threatening deep growl that had no right to be emitted by so tiny a kitten. She immediately returned to the bathroom and her towel nest.

Because he couldn’t stand sleeping across the hallway, not knowing what she’d get up to when he was asleep, Steve ended up moving her nest with Tiger inside to the sofa — where she found her way under one of the cushions and stayed there for the rest of the night. He promptly fell asleep too, never moving to his bed.

* * *

“Cat food?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Natasha caught him in the entrance hall on his way to the elevator, peering in his paper bag like the nosy spy she was. “Tell me you don’t eat it,” she demanded.

“Very funny. I’m old, but I still have all my teeth.”

“Aww, really? Even with how people try and punch you all the time?”

“I’m tough for an old timer.”

She grinned and pushed her finger against the scanner at the elevator door.

After going on the run from SHIELD together, cutting it off its Hydra infested roots, they’d become good friends. It also meant that sometimes, Natasha could read him like an open book. “I heard, tough guy. So? Want to confess?”

“Confess what?”

“Cat food? You’re too honest to try and poison Clint and Tony.”

“When has either of them been around for lunch _or_ dinner?” Steve asked back. He had hoped to see more of Tony from now on, even though a nagging voice at the back of his mind had told him that Tony had someone and thus would spend most of his time on the other side of the country.

_He was so excited when he offered you to stay here for the first time, and he was the one to reach out after what happened with SHIELD… Admit it, Rogers, you hoped he’d be living here. A neighbor down the hall — like the last one. The last one things didn’t work out with either, so what did you expect._

“Oh? Hasn’t Tony been by to see you? He arrived yesterday. He and Bruce have been puttering around the upper lab space pretty much non-stop.”

“He’s here?”

The elevator doors opened with a ping. “JARVIS? My quarters,” Steve ordered.

“Avengers level,” Natasha said.

The AI acknowledged them with a friendly greeting, but Steve’s mind was on the conversation.

“Yes, Tony’s here and I would have thought he’d knock at your door first, Cap. Didn’t he?”

She used the casual tone she only pulled out when she was telling him about women he should date. Surely she couldn’t mean..?

“Why?” he asked cautiously.

“No reason,” she said, and he knew that tone, too. “Well actually, you know he likes you best right? You’re his favorite Avenger.”

 _That_ sounded like a white lie at best.

“What makes you say that? He spends most of his time with Iron Man from what I hear,” he joked to keep the disappointment from slipping through.

“Very funny,” she said and pursed her lips. “But that’s what Pepper says, too.”

His heart missed a beat, and he bit his tongue so he wouldn’t ask if Pepper disapproved. Tony’s relationship was none of his business.

“They’re taking a break again,” Natasha supplied with a helpful grin that was too impish to be clueless.

He frowned, and she grinned wider.

“Cat food?” she prompted.

“It’s…” he paused and then sighed. “It’s for a cat.”

“Really? That’s sort of anticlimactic. You have a cat? Since when?”

“Found her. Took her home. Two days ago. It’s temporary.”

“Is it?”

He shrugged. The idea that an Avenger wasn’t the right person to keep a pet was so obvious that he thought the answer was self-evident.

“Can I see her?”

Steve shrugged again, resigned to the fact that Natasha rarely let anything go if she thought it was worth her interest and time.

* * *

Tiger didn’t appreciate the sudden visitors. She had just dared to venture into new territory and was causing mayhem all across the living room. When Natasha and Clint came by, she scurried beneath the sofa and kept well out of the way.

“She’s tiny,” Natasha said. “Where did you find her?”

“Back alley a few blocks from here.”

“You can’t keep her here,” Clint said. He was crouching down to get a look at the kitten. “We could find her a nice home. Somewhere out in the country. On a farm.”

“Right now, she’s on a foundling list, in case someone lost her,” Steve said, already reluctant to pursue the thought.

“And she has more than enough space. You can fit three farms into the space the Avengers levels take up in the Tower.”

“God, Nat, do you think Stark wants a _cat_ running around here? Scratching on all the expensive furniture?” Clint shook his head. “Imagine his face.”

“She’s not running around,” Steve said, feeling the need to go even more on the defensive.

Perhaps it was best not to tell Tony about this _at all_. Sam was trying to get Steve to find his own apartment, telling him he needed to get a life outside the Avengers if he wanted to really settle in this day and age. He could look for a place that was cat-friendly while he was at it. And wouldn’t it be better to have his own place? Where he wouldn’t feel like Tony was close by and yet out of reach, avoiding Steve most of the time?

As if she knew what was at stake, Tiger wandered out to let herself be petted the moment their two visitors had gone.

* * *

He woke up in the morning with a little furball sleeping on his stomach now. Tiger had not yet learned to get on the bed alone, but she spent a minute each evening doing her best to jump up a little higher until she could claw up the rest of the way. Steve grimaced every time he heard the ripping noises her tiny but devilishly sharp claws made on the sheets, but let her do it anyway.

It was nice to come home to the much too open space of the apartment Tony had given him and find someone waiting for him.

Smiling about the fact that it hadn’t taken more than a lost kitten to center him and drive away the loneliness that always crept in when he was left to his own devices for too long, he entered the kitchen that morning in search of cereal — and found Tony at the stove instead.

“Hiya, Cap,” Tony said. He was holding a spatula, and the kitchen smelled of delicious pancakes. “Want some?”

“You’re making breakfast?”

In fact, there was a pile of pancakes on a plate to the side. “Thor and Nat had theirs. Bruce declined in favor of a healthy smoothie. So the rest is for you and me.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, if you want them. Can’t eat them all by myself, and Natasha implied you like them, you just don’t like to make them.” Tony cocked his head and pointed at the chair, invitation clear.

“This is a joke about me burning water, right?”

“That bad?”

He shrugged. “I think she’s exaggerating. I’m not a passionate cook.”

Tony shoved an empty plate at him, handed him cutlery, and then put the stack of pancakes on the table. Steve was surprised to see him take the chair closest to him and pull a plate towards himself. “You haven't eaten yet, Tony?”

“I thought we’d all sit down together, but then everyone was in a rush, and you came back late from your morning run. Didn’t want you to eat alone. That’s just depressing, and I should know, I did it for years.”

“Eat alone?”

“Yeah,” he said. “In the workshop I don’t mind so much, because it’s just about getting a few bites in while I keep the work coming. I mean, if I remember food is a thing. But sitting down to have a real meal alone? That’s sad.”

In his first two years after being unfrozen, Steve had been alone. The times he’d had company for any meal during that time could be counted on one hand. The most notable occasion had been shawarma eaten among a group of heroes who had just defended New York against an alien army.

“And eating with someone is just the opposite?” Steve asked, not sure he wanted to admit to the sadness of taking your meals alone.

Tony weighed his head and grimaced. “Yeah, right, depends on the company. Believe me, I sat through a whole dinner with Justin Hammer in 1997 because someone insisted it was time well spent. It wasn’t. But if you can choose the company, it is generally less depressing to share a meal.”

“Like now?” Steve prompted.

“Yup,” Tony said and stabbed a fork into two pancakes at once, depositing them on Steve’s plate unceremoniously. “You better eat them. I was about to brand them with a star and nail them to your door. Be glad you showed up.”

It was a typical Tony thing to say: confrontational to hide that there was a nice thought beneath it. Tony had made breakfast for everyone, and he had waited for Steve to get his share. He had made breakfast for _Steve_. And waited to keep him company.

Perhaps Tony wasn't avoiding Steve after all.

“Where does an engineering genius and billionaire learn how to cook?” He thought it was an obvious question to ask.

“College. My father was very adamant about the fact that he was the rich guy and I did not in fact yet own much of anything, so I cooked to make the allowance last. Also, it’s pancakes. That’s not cooking. That’s mixing three things and pouring them in a pan. I make a mean omelet when I don't get distracted and burn it, though.”

Steve forked a bite into his mouth, drenched by now in butter and maple syrup. “I disagree. It’s cooking,” he said when the taste exploded on his tongue. Last time he’d made himself pancakes they’d been chewy and tasteless. These were soft and delicious.

Tony shrugged and laughed — as if this was nothing, as if it wasn’t a kindness shown to a fellow human being. Steve wanted to tell him how much it mattered, but the artless, genuine laughter was too compelling. He was content just watching him laugh.

That the pancakes were among the best he’d ever had didn’t hurt either.

* * *

Tiger slipped out the door and went exploring for the first time three days later. 

That first time, Steve found her sitting in the hallway. The second, she was wandering through the shared living room that sometimes served as the team’s meeting room. The third, she’d made it as far as the training room before she got scared and hid in a corner.

“Could you keep this quiet, JARVIS?” Steve asked, carrying the happily purring kitten back to their shared quarters.

“Consider it our secret, Captain,” the AI answered in his usual earnest tone, which right now bordered on mocking to Steve’s ears.

“Thank you,” he muttered and let himself back into his own living room, sat Tiger down and watched her flop down on the floor, waiting to be scratched.

“You and I have to talk, little Tiger.”

He couldn’t stay mad at her for one second though.

* * *

The next time she escaped, Steve rushed up the stairs, because he knew Tony was somewhere in the upper levels. He had returned from the West Coast that morning and Steve had run into him in the kitchen and later in the gym. He still hadn’t come clean about keeping the kitten. After Clint and Nat had more or less convinced him that Tony wouldn’t appreciate a pet in the house — and Sam had recently chimed in on that too — Steve hoped he wouldn’t have to argue about it before he’d actually made an effort at finding his own place.

He took the elevator up to go looking in the kitchen.

Someone had recently left cat treats there — Steve hadn’t had time to give the team a stern dressing down for that yet — and he hoped his smart kitten had trailed over to see if there was anything to munch on.

The kitchen was empty.

However, the spacious living room was not.

“Is that really more comfortable than sitting on my lap?”

It was Tony’s voice, and Steve would have known it anywhere. Usually, it was a welcome sound.

Right now, he only wanted to find the kitten before Tony did.

Quickening his pace, he rounded around the corner to check in on Tony, make sure the kitten wasn’t hiding anywhere close by, and leave. But when he rounded the corner from the kitchen space to the living room, he froze in his tracks, utterly surprised.

Tony was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, leaning back against it while _Tiger_ was doing her best to climb up his shirt the way she sometimes did with Steve, trying to reach his shoulder. From experience, Steve knew the little paws could cause some damage — but it didn’t look as if Tony minded at all.

“I really need to ask who brought you, little monster. It wasn’t Bruce, although he seemed like the most likely suspect. JARVIS?”

“That information is private,” the AI said.

Casually leaning against the door now to watch, because it didn’t seem like there was any problem, Steve saw Tony’s head fall back against the sofa and roll his eyes. Tiger was balancing on his shoulder right beside his face, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. “Ah, so this is the _keep quiet_ privacy protocol? Sucks to have boundaries.”

Tony patted Tiger’s head and let her attempt to curl up with part of her body perched on his shoulder and part of it on the sofa. From where Steve was standing, it was hard to tell for whom it was more uncomfortable.

“Someone asked JARVIS not to tell me about you,” Tony said to the kitten.

In response, Tiger started to groom her fur, nearly sliding off Tony’s shoulder in the process.

“And someone took all the cat treats, too. Sorry, dear. I’ll bring you new ones.”

“That was me,” Steve spoke up, startling both Tony and the kitten — who meowed softly when she saw him. “You bought them?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, squinting at him.

“I see you’ve met Tiger.”

“Tiger? That’s a big name for a sweet fluffy kitten like this.”

“You’re only saying that because you haven’t seen what she did to the curtains in my apartment and all the scratch marks she leaves by the window.”

Squinting at the kitten this time, Tony scratched her ears. She was watching Steve with wide eyes, and then made the happy sound that was her usual greeting for Steve. 

“Nothing that can’t be fixed. We do have a Hulk living here and the kitchen is in disarray every other day. Surely, that’s not all on the kitty.”

Steve smiled. Clearly, the team had been very wrong about what Tony would think about a cat in the Tower. It was a relief. Why was he even surprised? He knew Tony had a good heart that he sometimes hid behind a sharp tongue. He was _drawn_ to that.

He walked over, watched Tiger stretch on Tony’s shoulder to get up. She jumped down from the sofa and waited by Tony’s side until Steve reached her. When he got closer she meowed, demanding attention. He leaned down to pet her and then scooped her up, sitting down beside Tony on the floor, putting the kitten in his lap.

“Your cat?” Tony prompted after a moment.

Steve weighed the answer to that question for a long moment. “I wasn’t sure at first. But yeah, I’d say, since I’ve made no attempt to find her a new home in the last couple of weeks, that makes her my cat. Sorry, I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“Me? Why?”

Laughing at his own awkwardness, Steve admitted: “Because this is your Tower.”

“So, I’m the landlord? Is that what I am?”

Steve shrugged and grinned. “I have no idea what I was thinking,” he admitted. “I think for a week I told myself it was a bad idea to keep her. For another week I told myself that a hero strike team had no time for a cat. And by the time she had become a fixture I wasn’t sure I should tell you. You like cats?”

Tony shrugged. “I never had a pet growing up. Always wanted a cat, but dad preferred dogs. Never reached an agreement. Then I inherited a company and there was never really the time.”

“Hmm, yeah,” he replied. “Never had a pet before, either.”

Tiger enjoyed being petted and started purring. Tony reached over to stroke her fur and she leaned into the touch. During her recent escapes they had grown familiar with each other, Steve assumed.

From where he was sitting Steve got a good view of Tony's softly smiling profile. Steve's heart jumped. There was something about the affectionate, more private smile that the world so rarely got to see that made Steve realize there was some sadness mixed in.

 _Loneliness_ , maybe. He knew that intimately after all.

“I’ll be around a lot more,” Tony told him, attention still on Tiger. “In New York, I mean.”

“Pepper?”

“Didn’t work out as we planned,” Tony admitted. “Sometimes it gets too complicated.”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Steve said.

Tony shrugged.

The first thought that came to Steve’s mind shouldn’t have been: _Now I have a chance_. And yet he felt like it was exactly that.

“So, Tiger can stay up here too?”

“We can make sure she can’t get into any of the dangerous areas,” Tony suggested. “JARVIS, work out a plan, will you? We can talk about it later.”

“Sounds good,” Steve said softly.

Absentmindedly he petted Tiger, and a spark ran up from his fingers to his heart when his hand touched Tony’s. He had forgotten Tony was also petting the kitten.

Their eyes met, mirrored surprise written all over Tony’s face.

But also, _that spark_.

They both felt it.

“If you’re staying,” Steve tried cautiously, “let’s go out for lunch. Eating alone isn’t for either of us.”

“True,” Tony said and nodded. “We can pick up a scratching post or two for up here on the way.”

“Okay.” He felt like he’d just made a huge step into the unknown. But looking at Tony sideways, he could see that the man was also trying to figure out what had just happened.

Only then did he realize their hands were still touching, resting beside each other on Tiger’s orange fur.

He grabbed Tony’s fingers and squeezed a bit, hearing a surprised intake of breath.

“It’s a date,” Steve whispered.

Tony nodded and looked up with another of those private smiles. “Fine with me,” he agreed.

“Good. I’ll pick you up later.” Grinning to himself, Steve silently swore that he’d waste no more chances. Not only did it look like Steve now officially had a cat and that Tony had no problem with that, it also looked like Steve had a date. His real first date in this new day and age.

Thinking back, it felt like he’d come a long way from being the lonely man who picked up an abandoned kitten in the rain, who thought he still needed to find his place. Tony had given him a place right here, a home — and Steve had started to share it with Tiger.

Now that Tony would be spending more time here, Tiger and Steve could make sure it felt like home to him too.


End file.
